Libraries have transformed.

Technology makes it easier to form connections and provide relational information. Digitized books are as easy to search as Web pages. Reference and instruction that once required face-to-face interaction can now be performed online.

We continue to introduce services to realize the potential of technology and to help students and faculty succeed. Our expertise—as partners in teaching and research—fuels this vital growth.

And we are more still.

What if all the books of the Big Ten libraries were available online and fully searchable—as easy to search as Web pages are today? Imagine the possibilities: researchers would be able to search every word in every volume and make connections across works that would have taken weeks—even years—to make in the past.

A strategic alliance between IU and ChaCha, an Indiana company that is creating a new way of providing Internet searches, incorporates the collective knowledge and experience of the university’s library and information technology staff. By combining machine-based searches with input from human guides, ChaCha offers the instant results of a traditional search engine, but with expert guidance.

As an extension of the online reference services the IUB Libraries have long provided, librarians can point the academic community to the databases and online resources to which we subscribe. Users will benefit from easier access to trustworthy information sources.

Our new Web site emphasizes the search function as a means to discover resources. Searching in this context functions as a pathway, not an end result. Technology now makes it possible to search multiple resources simultaneously: visitors to the site no longer have to distinguish between a “database,” “index,” or “journal” to find what they need.

We are also pushing subscription-based electronic resources beyond the library Web site. Targeted resources are now easier for students to access. Faculty can now create reading lists in the course management software they use to post assignments and syllabi, allowing students to accomplish their work without having to log out of one application and into another. The feature was created by IU in partnership with the University of Michigan and with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. IU was also selected by the Digital Library Federation to advance this work for the benefit of libraries nationwide.

We continue to work with national partners to guarantee our users have long-term access to electronic journals.

Librarians demonstrate their value as teachers. One example: Our instructional services librarian is co-principal investigator (with faculty members from art education, astronomy, gender studies, and studio art) in a three-year research project to identify how visual methods can enhance teaching and learning. The project was awarded one of only two maximum $35,000 grants from the university’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Program. The outcome of the project will inform instructors—at IU and elsewhere—how visual literacy can advance teaching practices.

We are helping faculty distribute their scholarship in new ways, motivated in part by our desire to address skyrocketing journal costs. IUScholarWorks, the digital repository for disseminating and preserving scholarly work at IU, continues to grow. We will soon help faculty publish their own electronic journals.